You Can (Not) Forget
by Kosmic Eclipse
Summary: In the aftermath of Impact 3.5 Shinji struggles to come to terms with everything that's happened, while Misato and the others get used to the new Shinji. One Shot.


**Authors Note: Another from my AO3 account.**

**This is what was in my head after watching 3.0 a few years back. Everyone's so mad at Shinji, but they don't tell him anything. They don't explain why he shouldn't go with Rei or what's happening. They just tell him they hate him and that's it. And to make matters worse, Misato was one of the main reasons for him even getting in the Eva to start the 3rd impact.**

**On a lighter note, Kaworu is still the best.**

* * *

Shinji sat unmoving in a white room. One he'd been in before. Neither time was of his own volition. The first time was when he was rudely awoken by a group of familiar faces. Asuka looked the same and acted the same minus her eye patch, punching the clear barrier between the rooms hard enough to crack it. He was confused and didn't know what was going on. Being threatened by people he thought friends. His former caretaker, Misato, not even speaking to him after he woke up. He made what he considers a big mistake at that time. Leaving with Rei when she showed up in an Eva. They all told him not to go, but he didn't listen. Didn't want to. Not after how he'd been treated. He was taken to his father and treated the same as he always was by Gendo. But he'd met Kaworu, which he considered worth it.

His mind flashed the white haired boy smiling before going red.

The second time was now. He'd been dragged there by Asuka after he'd made another mistake. He didn't listen, so focused on trying to right a wrong. His mind drifted to Kaworu again, but he managed to shake the thought before the memory could play out again. He didn't really want to go, but he was in too much shock to think about, let alone actually do anything. He was slowly gaining pieces of himself back after the trauma and could hear people, but couldn't bring himself to do much other than blink and glance at someone when he heard his name.

"How long has he been like this?" Misato asked.

"Since I pulled him out of unit 15." Asuka explained.

"What could have happened?" Ritsuko asked.

"Unit 15 needed 2 pilots. We have the surviving one."

"So the other boy must have taken his collar." Ritsuko theorized.

"But how?" Misato asked.

"He wasn't human. He probably just took it off." The blonde doctor moved to Shinji. "Am I correct?" She asked the unresponsive boy.

"You're not going to get anything out of him. I had to force feed him to even get him here alive." Asuka explained.

"Hm…" She pulled out a small flash light to check his eyes. They didn't follow the light, instead he remained still, his only movement being from breathing, something he likely would've shut off if he could.

"He's really bad." Misato said, finally realizing the gravity of his state.

"It's probably just guilt. Give him a few days and I bet he'll be back to his old self." Asuka said as she left the room.

"Do you think she's taking this too lightly?"

"Possibly. I've never seen anyone like this before. It's similar to early P.T.S.D, but they show at least some form of response to stimuli. He seems to be closer to brain dead than anything."

Misato didn't say anything, but clenched her fists. She wanted to blame someone for this, but she didn't know who.

"Okay," Ritsuko picked up a black collar "You remember this right, Shinji?"

His eyes snapped to meet hers and she took a small step back. He never looked like this before, even for all his teenage angst. This was something different from his usual depressive fits. His eyes looked far away and hollow, like he was looking straight through her.

"T-this is the same type of collar that you had on before," She held the item up to see and Shinji looked down at it.

His memory of Kaworu dying played again in his head.

"I'm going to put this on you again. You still remember what it does right?" She almost flinched as his eyes snapped from the collar to her. "Misato still has to remote, and it will kill you if you try to take it off, so behave." She said as she placed the collar around his neck and snapped it into place, skin tight around his neck.

The second she stepped away to continue speaking with Misato, his hand shot up to his neck.

"Hey!" Misato yelled.

Shinji dug his fingers into his neck, leaving small, thin scratches as tried to tug at the collar. His fingers slipped the first time, and he didn't have time to try again before Misato tackled him to the ground. He fought her, something he never did before, struggling to get his arms free of her grasp, thrashing as hard as he could.

"Hey!" Ritsuko shouted, causing both of them to stop. This was how it always went with these two, but the stakes of this fight were much higher. They looked at her, and saw she was holding the remote for the necklace. "Stop it or I activate the necklace." She threatened.

This had the opposite effect, making Shinji instead fight harder.

"Hey, stop!" Misato said as she once again returned to restraining the boy. "Ow!" She screamed as he brought his head up and slammed his forehead into the side of her head, knocking her glasses off and breaking them. She let go, giving Shinji enough time to get up and walk towards Ritsuko.

"Stop! Don't come near me! I'm warning you!" She shouted, taking steps away from the boy as he advanced on her. She didn't have the heart to press the button.

Before he could snatch the remote away, Shinji was once again taken down, this time his arms being cuffed behind him before he could try anything else. He struggled for a bit, before realizing he couldn't move and returning to his docile state, eyes dark and unresponsive.

"Take him to the cell." Misato ordered two guards who showed up as the commotion ended. When they were gone, Misato looked over to Ritsuko with worry on her face. "Did he just try to kill himself?!" She asked, taking deep breaths.

"I… Yeah. Yeah he did. We should probably take that collar off before we remove his restraints. He'll just start tugging at it again."

Misato just sighed, a deep regret and sadness obvious in its tone.

Shinji was basically dragged down the long white hallways to his cell. The men carrying him didn't seem to care, obvious by the way he was jostled around and thrown into his cell, the two not bothering to take his cuffs of. Shinji landed hard on his side and slid near the bed, but didn't make any signs he'd move. The guards left and Shinji stayed like that, unmoving on the cold tile floor. He wasn't sure how much time had passed, not that he was particularly aware of his surroundings anyway. He'd heard three distinct calls of "Meal Time!" followed by the sound of a tray sliding into his cell, meaning it had been at least a day.

"He hasn't eaten?" Ritsuko asked outside the cell.

"No. He's been in that position since I came the first time. I'm guessing that's how he got dropped in there." The woman said.

"Thanks." Ritsuko sighed.

The woman left, leaving Ritsuko outside the room, looking through the bars at Shinji. She sighed again before stepping into the room.

"Shinji?" She asked, hoping to get a response. He didn't even look at her this time. "I'm going to take the cuffs and collar off." She said as she moved to do that. She took the collar off first and put it in her pocket, before sitting him up and removing the cuffs. "We can't have you killing yourself."

Shinji looked at her, his eye's seeming to ask "Why not? Why won't you let me die?"

Ritsuko shivered. These aren't the eyes a 14 year old boy should have, even if he was technically 28 now.

"I… We need you, Shinji!" She lied. He always needed to be needed, so she thought if she played to that there could be a change. The truth was they just wanted to keep him out of his father's hands. They didn't know if the old man was still out there and if he'd try to trigger another impact. "So just stay here until we need you, okay?"

Shinji didn't answer. His eyes fell back to the floor.

"Come get in the bed." Ritsuko said, picking him up to his feet and making him get in the bed. "I'm leaving now." Ritsuko said after getting him in the bed, the metal door closing behind her.

Shinji didn't know how much time had passed. He'd passed out a few times, and sound didn't seem to reach him. He just lied there, unmoving, only involuntary body functions working their hardest to keep him alive. His mind replayed the events since he woke up like a movie, forcing him to relive the death of his friend over and over. Kaworu… He saw the explosion of red again, unable to escape the memory.

And for the first time in who knew how long, Shinji showed some emotion. He accepted what had happened. All the guilt and sadness washed over him and seemed to cleanse his soul. He felt better now that he had finally stopped running away from reality, but it didn't change that he was still a depressed mess.

"Meal Time!" The same voice he'd heard before said. The trey slid into his room followed by footsteps leaving.

He forced himself off the bed, moving to where the food was and began to look it over. At least it looked a little like food, unlike whatever his father was giving him. He poked the blobs of food on his plate with the fork he was given. He tested a small bite of everything, but only finished what had tasted like some kind of desert. He put the trey back down and moved to a corner of the room on the side of the door, sitting with his knees tucked up to his chest.

More time passed. It was impossible to tell with the lights always on, however they did fade when it was supposedly night time. He heard a set of footsteps walking toward the door.

"Meal T-…" She stopped as she looked down at the tray. He'd eaten. Not a lot, but it was something. But he was nowhere to be seen in the room. She quickly replaced the trays before running off down the hallway. Shinji waited until he couldn't hear them anymore before moving toward the food. This time he just moved straight for what he'd actually eaten last time. Before he finished he heard a few sets of footsteps running towards him. He quickly dropped the tray and moved back to his spot in the corner of the room.

"See!" The woman said, pointing down to the tray with a half-eaten section.

"Shinji!" Ritsuko and Misato called. When there wasn't a response they burst into the room, Misato tripping and falling onto the bed.

"I told you, you shouldn't have left the door unlocked!" Misato said.

"I just wanted to see if he'd try to leave!"

"Well he did and now we don't-." Misato stopped as she saw Shinji in the corner with his face tucked down into his knees. "Oh…" She said.

"What?" Ritsuko followed her line of sight and said, "Oh…" She walked up to him and seemed to hesitate. "Shinji, are you feeling better?"

"… Lights." He said without looking up.

The three women were shocked. He hadn't spoken since coming back.

"What?"

"Keep them off." He said, expecting her to fill in the blanks.

"Shinji, look at as!" Misato said.

Shinji didn't. He was done speaking. Nothing left to say.

"Ugh! Why are you always like this?!" Misato stormed up to him and grabbed his head, forcing him to look up at her. She wavered as their eyes met and he seemed to be looking through her. The hollowness in his eyes was haunting. She wasn't expecting him to meet her gaze. He never did when she scolded him before. She thought he was back to normal, but he wasn't. This was something different. He seemed like a different person. She let go and his head fell back to the way it was.

"Right… Well, we'll turn the lights off for you." Ritsuko said as she pulled Misato away.

"That wasn't Shinji." Misato said.

"Why do you care?" Asuka asked.

"Like you don't! If you didn't you wouldn't have dragged him all the way back here." Misato snapped.

"That was just… He needs to be punished for what he did!"

"Watching someone you consider a friend die because they wanted to help you seems punishment enough." Ritsuko said.

"What about us!? Aren't we his friends?!" Misato asked.

"I doubt he sees us like that anymore. To him we're probably just heartless villains that want to keep him suffering."

The conversation went silent, none of them contesting the idea, knowing it was probably true.

"Shinji…" Misato stood outside his cell. It was dark and she couldn't tell if he was in there or not since the door was still unlocked. She waited for a reply, but continued when she got none. "I… I know you probably hate us now… Hate me… Now. But I have my reasons. I'm sure we told you about your contamination levels and all that. Though I doubt you care about any of that. I just… I'm not going to ask you to forgive us… Me. But I just…" Her voice cracked and she took a second to gather herself. "I just want to know if there's anything I can do to help. And… You're free to walk around if you like. You'll be monitored, of course, but you can go where you want." The door creaked open and Misato peeked her head in to look at where Shinji sat last time. "Ritsuko wanted to keep the door open since you seemed to not want to leave anyway." She waited for a response again, but was met with deafening silence. "Okay," She said dejectedly. "Just… Tell me if you want anything." She started to leave.

"Piano." Shinji said from behind her.

Misato snapped her head to the opposite corner of where she had been looking. "W-what?"

"I want a piano. It's the only way I'll leave this room."

"A… Piano?" She asked. Shinji gave no response. "I don't know where we can get a piano… but… I guess I'll try." She sounded a bit more upbeat now that he'd said something to her. She left, feeling a bit better.

Shinji was picked up from his room, no restraints put on him this time, and led down a long hallway. They made a lot of turns and Shinji thought the pathway was a little convoluted.

"Ugh, why do we have to escort him?" The man on the right asked.

"Because Commander Katsuragi ordered us to." The man on the left said.

"But after everything this kid has done, why don't we just kill him?"

"She said we might need him for something and that he'd be a better asset to us alive than dead."

"I think it's just her lingering affection for him. You know she used to take care of this brat before he caused the third impact."

"Shut up! We're not supposed to talk about that!"

"Brat!" The man on the right said down to Shinji. Shinji looked up at him expressionlessly. "What's stopping me from killing you right now?" He pulled out his gun.

"What the fuck man, stop that! You could get into serious trouble!" His friend tried to talk him down, but didn't make a move to stop him.

"No. Why shouldn't I kill you right here?" He placed his gun against Shinji's head.

"Do it." Shinji said lowly.

The man on the left was shocked, while the man holding the gun only seemed angered by it.

"What was that, brat?"

"Do it!" Shinji shouted. "Come on! Do it! Fucking do it!" Shinji shouted.

The man tried to step back, but Shinji advanced on him until his back was against the wall. Shinji grabbed the barrel of the gun and held it tightly against his forehead.

"Come on! Do us both a favor and do it! Pull the trigger! Do it! Pull the fucking trigger!"

The man was shaking visibly, terrified that his threat had been turned on him. He wasn't expecting the kid to actually want to die.

Shinji sighed and shook his head. "That's what I thought. You're as big a coward as I am."

"Jesus Christ kid…" The other man said.

Shinji didn't move, waiting for them to either take him where they were going or back to his cell. The guy who wasn't shaking recovered and continued to escort Shinji to the location.

The room was wide and empty, save for the large piano in the room.

Shinji walked over to it to examine it before sitting on the bench in front of it. He stretched his fingers briefly before starting, somber tones coming from the piano as he pressed against the keys.

Misato watched from a camera that was in the room. She noticed he seemed to be quite good, and be having fun. She was surprised. He didn't know how to play piano before. Did he learn in the time between leaving and coming back?

After a few hours Shinji stood up and was returned to his cell.

Shinji was being escorted to his piano again. This time by different people. The first two guys wanted nothing to do with him after he'd basically begged one of them to shoot him in the face. He started playing as he always did once he was sat down at the instrument.

"Shinji." Misato called from the doorway, causing him to mess up and play a wrong note.

He sighed and looked up towards the purple haired woman.

"You're quite good you know." She said as she dismissed the guards.

Shinji didn't say anything.

"Did you learn when you were with Gendo?"

"What do you want, Misato?" Shinji felt a little annoyed she was interrupting his playing time.

"Well, we found this, and I figured you might want it back. Though it doesn't seem to work anymore." She handed him a familiar black tape player.

Shinji looked down at the familiar thing. He'd listened to it constantly before. A tape of songs that used to belong to his father. He thought it might be a way to get closer to him. Now, all he saw was lost time and wasted emotion. The tape player brought up nothing but anger. Instead of being happy like she thought he would be, Shinji was visibly upset to have the tape player back in his hands.

He dropped it on the floor and began stomping on it with his bare feet until it was smashed to pieces. He took a few deep breaths, ignoring Misato's bewilderment before sitting back down at the piano. There was blood dripping from his foot, but he didn't seem to notice or care.

"Shinji I… you…" The woman sighed. "Can we talk?"

"Sit." Shinji moved over to allow her space on the bench.

"No, I… I can't play."

"Doesn't matter. I couldn't at first either. Kaworu…" He choked at the name, "He told me it doesn't matter that you don't know how to play. Just play whatever feels good."

"But I…"

"You'll get used to it." Shinji offered up the most encouraging words he could.

"Fine…" The started to play alongside Shinji.

After a while she started to get the hang of it. She would play something and he would play something and they would play together and it felt nice. When they were tired, they finally stopped.

"… Shinji… Can we talk?"

"…" Shinji knew what she wanted to say. He sighed and asked, "Did you even have a plan?"

"W-what?" Misato panicked at the question.

"When you woke me up. Did you have a plan? Or did you just wing it?"

"We had a plan!"

"Really? Was it to take the most emotionally fucked up kid on earth, ostracize and berate him for something he had no knowledge of doing, and then get mad when he didn't do what you said after you threatened to kill him?"

"W- No!"

"Well that's what you did, so I take it you had no plan."

"Shinji! It's not like that! I was just… We were… It was hard. Seeing you again after so long. After everything that happened."

"You think it wasn't hard for me either? Suddenly waking up and being told 14 years passed and suddenly having people I considered friends threatening to kill me, oh and by the way everyone hates you now?" Shinji slammed his hand against the keys, creating a sharp clashing sound with his words.

"Shinji, I…" Misato couldn't find the words.

"Kaworu was the only one who told me anything! Told me how badly I fucked up. He told me there was a chance to fix it, but I didn't listen when he said something was wrong. I was so caught up in trying to right my wrongs I got my only friend left killed!"

"I'm still your friend!"

"Are you? Were you ever? Or was it all out of pity? Did you ever really care about me, or were you just taking pity on someone you saw yourself in? Wanting a companion to wallow in self-hatred and misery with you? Because there's a difference."

"I… Shinji it's not like that! At first it was, but the more time we spent together, the less it was, the more I cared about you."

"Sure you did." Shinji said as he left the room.

Misato sat at the piano, trying to keep herself from crying. She never thought Shinji could change so much.

Shinji was agitated. He was angry. Something that rarely happened. He walked through the hallways aimlessly before passing a sign leading to the power room. That's where he decided to go. He followed the sign until he reached the large engine for the even larger ship. He knew his Eva, Unit 01, was the engine, but he didn't know exactly how badly they had tampered with it. He walked until he found a good spot near the head to look at the ocean beneath them.

"I don't even know what I'm doing here…" He said to himself, knees tucked into his chest.

He looked over at the familiar green and purple paint job, and let out a sigh. He thought back to when he first showed up at NERV.

"I remember I used to hate you." He looked at the giant robot. "Forced to pilot you because Rei was injured. Now that I think about it that was probably a fresh clone. It makes sense, I guess, in this fucked up world. That first night was tough. Suddenly thrust into you and forced to fight an Angel. It was stressful. And painful. I think I might've nearly died, but I don't remember a lot about that night. Just pain and waking up looking at that ceiling. And getting punched the next day because Toji's sister got caught in the crossfire. Being a pilot was the worst thing in the world at first. I hated every second. Only doing it so my… So Gendo would acknowledge me. After that was the time Misato slapped me because I didn't follow her orders to retreat after rescuing Kensuke and Toji. I almost resigned after that." Shinji sighed and scratched his head.

The control room was silent as Misato, Ritsuko, and Asuka looked at the camera, listening to him. Not really sure what to do about him, but not wanting to interrupt.

"The worst of the solo missions was probably that blue crystal angel. I got boiled alive in LCL and you almost got destroyed. Misato got the idea to use a rail gun to kill it. We almost died, but Rei really saved us back then. But I guess we saved her too. That was when I think I started to get feelings for her. Though I was jealous because she was Gendo's favorite. But now I know why. That man is a lot more fucked up than I thought. What happened after that? It was Asuka right? Her crazy game of hopscotch with all those ships, forcing me into the cockpit with her to try and show off even though I still hated being a pilot at that point. Though I guess that's when I started to change. Shortly after meeting her was the first time I ever piloted you willingly. Though even then I went on every mission hoping to be granted a swift death. I've always been too much of a coward to kill myself, and I guess it's still true 14 years later. Asuka was a real bitch back then. She still is. But she was as insecure as I was. She placed her entire being on being a pilot, and felt like if she wasn't she was nothing. I still kind of feel like that, but I'm guessing she's over it by now."

"This is the most I've ever heard him talk about how he feels…" Ritsuko said.

"And all it took was a lot of emotional scarring." Misato sighed.

"The double angel incident was quite interesting. Asuka moved in and I hated everything about it. She basically took over my room. But I found out she wasn't a bad person. Just angry at the world and sad. It's funny now. We were like water and oil. Of course she was oil. She's still oil. She got so upset when Rei and I were in perfect sync no problem, but me and her couldn't sync to save our lives. At least, not for another week or so. I nearly kissed her one night. I never told you this story. I was up listening to music and pretended to be sleep when she went to the bathroom. Her being half asleep, she laid down next to me instead of going back to her room. I was so addled on hormones I nearly kissed her even though I didn't really like her like that. But I stopped. She started sleep talking. Tears came to her eyes and she was calling for her mom like a child. I panicked and moved away."

"I'm gonna kill him!" Asuka said as the others giggled.

"Then she nearly died after testing a new Eva and I was forced to nearly kill her due to the dummy system. I was so upset about it Gendo fired me as an Eva pilot. Hand cuffs and everything. Then there was that Mari chick. She was weird."

"Hey!" Mari said as she looked up from where she was sitting.

"She activated the beast on Asuka's Unit 02 and, along with Misato and Ritsuko, convinced me to get in you and stop the angel and save Rei. It was a hard fight. Rei died, and I guess I started the third impact as a result. And that's what brought us here. To Kaworu dying. I should've been the one to die. Kaworu didn't deserve it. He was too nice of a guy. Compared to him, I'm…" Shinji couldn't finish the sentence. He sighed deeply and stood up. "The ocean is so nice. Despite the gross red color, it's still so calm. I would be so easy to just jump from here. I'd either die on impact or drown or die of starvation. Hopefully the first one."

"Stop him! Stop him now!" Misato yelled.

"But like I said, I'm too much of a coward to do that."

"Oh thank goodness!" She relaxed.

"Oh well… Anyway, good talk buddy. It feels pretty good to get this all out. You're better than a therapist since you're my robot and you can't talk so I can project whatever I want on you… That was really self-aware of me. Anyway, I'm going back to my cell. Maybe I'll go to sleep. Hopefully I don't wake up." Shinji said as he started back to his cell.

"…" The room was silent, everyone wanting to say something but no one having the words. So no one said anything. They sat quietly and continued their work, hoping they'd never have to hear anything like that again.


End file.
